Now that the latest flare-up of fighting between Israel and Gaza has subsided, at least for the moment, here are nine thoughts on the clash, the outcomes, and the implications.

Although the timing is suspicious, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu probably did not launch an operation in Gaza to forestall a developing accommodation with Hamas. The Israeli incursion that sparked the latest conflagration in Gaza was of a kind that Israel carries out on a routine basis. It was, from all appearances, a routine intelligence operation gone awry. Gaza has been a steady source of political losses for Netanyahu, this time as well. His willingness to consent to Qatari cash coming into the Strip was unpopular in Israel, as was his quick agreement to a ceasefire. There was no good reason for Netanyahu to have intentionally gone down this path. Read more at LobeLog

While the Iran nuclear agreement (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA) is far from safe from attacks by Donald Trump, it is becoming clear that a Plan B is being put in motion. The United States is clearly a part of it, but this time Saudi Arabia is driving the agenda.

The events of the past week – the sudden resignation of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, the massive purge of key political, security, and business figures in Saudi Arabia, a missile heading toward Riyadh from Yemen which the Saudis called an act of war – are all part of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s (MbS) drive to consolidate power. His radical grab, which started in the spring, has dramatically altered the nature of Saudi politics, alienating many in the ruling family, breaking with established norms of quietly dealing with political rivalries within that family, and removing a system of checks on autocratic power that, though weak, were not meaningless.

It is impossible to know how all of this will end, but here are some initial thoughts: Read more at LobeLog

The effects of Donald Trump’s trip last month to the Middle East continue to multiply. The focus, quite correctly has been on the breach between Qatar and Saudi Arabia. But the effects of the Saudis’ wooing of Trump are felt throughout the region.

Flattering the president of the United States is a sensible thing for most world leaders to do, but this president, basking in all-encompassing flattery, becomes immediately susceptible to the views of his supplicants. Trump came away from his Middle East trip having bought whole cloth into the Saudi narrative of regional politics, and his criticism of Qatar clearly spurred on what has transpired since. But it was not only the Saudi royal family that captured Trump’s attention. Read more at LobeLog

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It comes as no surprise that Bernie Sanders’ gaffe in his interview with the editorial board of the New York Daily News regarding the 2014 clash between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip has gotten a lot of play. Sanders cited a figure of approximately 10,000 deaths, which was actually the figure for wounded and about five times the number killed.

Sanders immediately accepted the correction, and issued a statement confirming the error. But since then, he has stuck with his basic point: that the Israeli response to Gaza was disproportionate and exceeded any acceptable level of collateral damage to civilians and civilian infrastructure. Read more at Medium.com

When Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) announced her support of the nuclear agreement between the P5+1 and Iran, she assured President Obama that his signature foreign policy victory would withstand a congressional challenge. With victory assured, many are trumpeting a victory over some very powerful forces, led by the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), by far the most effective foreign policy lobby in Washington.

The sense of victory, however, needs to be tempered. Anyone who believes that securing the Iran nuclear agreement in Congress might have an effect on United States policy and its potential actions regarding the ongoing Israeli occupation of the West Bank and blockade of the Gaza Strip needs to take a deep breath. Read more at TPM Cafe

With all eyes on the framework agreement for a nuclear deal with Iran, and on the looming Capitol Hill battle to defend it, it is easy to forget that Israel is still in the process of forming its new government. With much of the drama playing out offstage, many observers are sitting back and waiting for the political wrangling over ministries and Knesset committee chairs to be over.

But some are making the case that there is more brewing than the doling out of prestige appointments to the leaders of the parties expected to be part of the fourth Benjamin Netanyahu government. A unity government, at one time thoroughly rejected by both Netanyahu and Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog, has emerged again as at least a theoretical possibility. Read more at the FMEP blog.

On December 31, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas closed out a year of stinging defeats by signing on to 18 international accords. Included among these was the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC). The reaction in Jerusalem and Washington was apoplectic.

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